Murder Victim’s Fight Produced Key Evidence

The killings Cary Stayner is accused of carrying out might have continued if his fourth victim had not put up such a valiant fight, a struggle that forced Stayner to leave behind a sloppy trail of clues that led investigators straight to his doorstep.

In the final moments of her life, sources close to the investigation said, Joie Armstrong might have saved other lives.

Stayner, a 37-year-old motel handyman who has confessed to the slayings, had done such a meticulous job of murdering three Yosemite sightseers in February that FBI investigators were chasing down the wrong trail, sources said.

But in the Armstrong murder, they said, the 26-year-old naturalist apparently foiled Stayner’s previous method of operation, which was to kill without struggle and carefully cover his tracks.

Confronted at her home in a remote edge of Yosemite National Park last week, sources said, Armstrong fought wildly for several minutes against her 6-foot-1, 200-pound attacker. While the killer ultimately subdued the environmental educator, Armstrong created enough confusion and ruckus that Stayner was forced to hurriedly dispose of her beheaded body in a nearby stream and flee, sources said.

In his haste, he left behind footprints and the distinctive tracks of his baby blue International Scout, a well-worn vehicle that bore a different brand of tire on every wheel, they said. It was those unique tracks that allowed investigators to hunt down Stayner and crack a case that had confounded them for months.

“It was a fight from start to finish. She tried to get away and she almost did get away. And those several minutes of struggle left behind a lot of evidence,” said a source close to the investigation. “Her determined fight for life denied him the chance to cover up the crime scene and it led to his capture and undoubtedly saved other lives.”

Itinerary of Crimes

Stayner, a sun-worshiping, back-country buff described as friendly but a bit of a loner, has told authorities that he killed Armstrong and acted alone in the February slaying of Carole Sund, the Eureka woman’s 15-year-old daughter, Juliana, and family friend Silvina Pelosso, 16.

During a lengthy interrogation over the weekend, Stayner provided investigators with an exacting itinerary of his crimes. They also recovered a knife believed used in the slaying of Armstrong and a slew of other evidence.

Sources close to the investigation said Stayner acted with methodical brutality in the murders of the three tourists. He dumped their bodies in adjacent Tuolumne County and then tossed Sund’s wallet onto a busy street in the Central Valley city of Modesto, all in an effort to throw off investigators.

Investigators don’t know if Stayner and Joie Armstrong had ever met before he confronted her at her home in remote Foresta, an enclave of cabins dotting an alpine canyon just inside the park’s western boundary.

Instead of cowering, Armstrong battled her assailant.

Thrown off course, Stayner left behind a body and a crime scene loaded with clues, sources said. Investigators started questioning him Thursday and matched up the tire tracks by Friday. Stayner had disappeared, but authorities found him at a nudist camp Saturday and he calmly confessed.

The arrest was a surprise twist in the five-month investigation. In statements in recent weeks, FBI officials heading the case assured the public that the suspects responsible for killing Sund and the two girls were behind bars on other charges. The investigative effort was focused solely on a small band of San Joaquin Valley methamphetamine abusers who had been convicted of sex crimes.

Federal authorities said one suspect had even given a series of statements that directly implicated him in the murders. In addition, they said, they had recovered acrylic blanket fibers tying him and others to the murder scene. Federal authorities did concede that the suspects were making conflicting statements and none had divulged the location of the killings or a motive.

But these holes were not enough to convince them that a different suspect--someone acting alone--might be responsible. Their confidence stemmed in part from a FBI crime lab report showing that the fiber match was good.

Tests Questioned

In light of Stayner’s confession, sources close to the case say the crime lab either botched things or the fiber match was an “incredible coincidence.”

FBI and U.S. Justice Department officials declined Tuesday to discuss any problems with the bureau’s crime lab testing.

But family members of the victims for the first time questioned the FBI’s massive manhunt, pointing out that Stayner had been questioned and passed over months earlier. Stayner was a handyman at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal where Sund, Juliana and Silvina were staying.

“This man was questioned so many times,” Silvina’s mother, Raquel Pelosso, told Univision TV’s Sacramento affiliate. “He is either a very astute person or there was carelessness” by the FBI.

In Foresta, residents were grappling with grief over a young woman everyone knew and liked.

A longtime resident of the tiny community described Armstrong as a young woman with “a beautiful energy that was contagious.”

“We all have this terrible feeling of desecration,” said the women, a close friend of Armstrong who asked that her name be withheld. “This is where I had experienced this exuberant life--and now it is a crime scene.”

Armstrong’s green clapboard home, topped by a pitched and slightly rusted tin roof, looks onto a grassy meadow of wildflowers and wetlands. It is about the same spot that a 19th century woman pioneer named Elizabeth Meyers built her home, a topic that once caused Armstrong to search the park’s library for more information. The house is around the corner or down the hill from its nearest neighbors, just out of sight.

Neighbors are convinced that the killer must have surprised Armstrong and quickly silenced her because no screams were reported and the area is so still that the occasional approaching car can be heard at a distance.

“I was lying in my hammock and she was being killed down there,” Armstrong’s longtime friend said. “We did not hear anything.”

Armstrong lived in Foresta with her boyfriend and another roommate. Both worked with her at the Yosemite Institute, an educational facility that provides classes on nature to children. The two nights before she was killed July 21, her roommates were gone and she was alone for the first time since moving there earlier this year.

She told her friend that she was afraid to be home alone and was particularly worried about a threatening man who worked in Yosemite Valley--but it was not Stayner. Still, Armstrong declined an offer to stay overnight at her friend’s home, insisting that she wanted to be strong and face her fears.

Neighbor’s Story

The night of the killing, a neighbor walked near Armstrong’s house about 8 p.m. and noticed that her white pickup truck was still parked in the unpaved driveway although she had been expected to leave for San Francisco earlier that evening. Both doors to the house were open and music was playing inside.

Early next morning, the longtime friend was walking her dogs and noticed that the truck was still at the house and the doors were open, although the stereo was no longer playing.

A short time later, rangers arrived after a friend Armstrong was supposed to have met in the Bay Area reported her missing. Within a few hours, search and rescue crews fanned out, finally locating her body in a rushing stream barely 100 yards from her home.

Tuesday was the first day the public was allowed back into Foresta after the killing. The dusty dirt turnoff to Armstrong’s home remained sealed off with yellow police tape and a barricade. Armstrong’s truck was still in the road, sealed with a coroner’s sticker. The same patch was applied to the front and rear doors of the house.

Stayner has been charged with Armstrong’s slaying and authorities said the various agencies investigating the Sund-Pelosso case will meet later this week to consider charges in that case.

Meanwhile, detectives in several Central California counties are reviewing several unresolved slayings to determine whether Stayner is involved in any of them.

Calaveras County Sheriff’s Det. Robert Mortimer said FBI agents have told him they will ask Stayner about the 1994 killing of 23-year-old Sharalyn Murphy, a prostitute whose body was found with no head or hands. “He has nothing left to lose now; he already admitted to those other ones,” Mortimer said. “If he did this one he might as well admit it.”

In El Dorado County, detectives are wondering if Stayner might be responsible for the 1992 decapitation murder of 19-year-old Veronica Martinez, a Sacramento waitress.

In Tuolumne County, detectives are looking at Stayner in connection with the stabbing murder of a woman whose body was torched in a barrel in 1994 at the same lake where Juli Sund was killed.

Some authorities say they are convinced Stayner would have killed again if he had not been tripped up in the death of Armstrong.

In a last e-mail to a friend only days before she died, Armstrong described her hopes for the future and her deep love of nature.

“You should come see this place,” she wrote her friend. “I love the big meadow with all its daisies and incredible history. . . . I also love my garden and living in Yosemite--one of the most beautiful places in the whole wide world.”

Times staff writers James Rainey, Eric Lichtblau and researchers Tracy Thomas and William Holmes contributed to this report.